Postgame: Orlando City S.C.

KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The way the Crew’s 3-2 win against Orlando City S.C. unfolded gave Josh Williams a sense of déjà vu. Although the Crew never trailed against the USL Pro team, it twice allowed tying goals before scratching out the win in the 89th minute.

“That’s not what we want,” he said. “Toward the end of last year that’s what happened. We’d settle down a little bit and get a little lax and lose focus. I think that’s what happened on both of the goals.”

On the first goal, Orlando City took advantage of a misguided back pass from central defender Glauber and scored on a breakaway. Its second goal was an own goal after Crew goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum deflected a shot that ricocheted off a teammate – listed as Glauber on the official stat sheet – and into the net.

Head coach Robert Warzycha said it was not just the defense that came out of the game with things to work on.

“I don’t think if you give up goals that it’s the defense’s fault,” he said. “We gave up the goal because we were dropping too much. We have to be better at keeping the ball and don’t give opponents chances to have set pieces in the right places or play through balls. We just have to be much better in the midfielders and the forwards.”

The flashbacks were at least different in one crucial way for Williams, however: the defender converted a Federico Higuain corner kick for his first goal of the preseason. After a hard-luck 2012 season where Williams rang the posts with consistency but finished with just one goal, he is hoping better things are in store this year.

“That was a good start, huh?” he said. “No post. It actually went right down the middle, so I was happy to see it go right between the posts after last year. I think last year was just a fluke, kind of freak year. Hopefully I can continue this, start avoiding the posts and start finding the net.”

Set piecesThrough six preseason games, the Crew now sits 5-1 against varying levels of competition. In that stretch, Higuain has two goals and three assists, giving him a direct hand (foot?) in five of the team’s 11 preseason goals.

All of Higuain’s points have come courtesy of set pieces, and both goals are on penalty kicks.

“I think we’re going to be dangerous on set pieces,” Warzycha said. “Obviously we scored three goals off of set pieces today, but we have good service and we have some guys who can really finish. Glauber didn’t have a header on the ball today and Chad Marshall had to leave the field but we were still able to have somebody making a run and finishing those crosses. That’s very positive.”< /p>

Agustin Viana, who scored his first Crew goal three minutes into tonight’s game with Orlando City on a Higuain free kick, said he is quickly learning what Higuain can do in those situations.

“We were working a lot on that play,” he said. “We know that we have Higuain, and when we have a player like him we must take the approach of working with him. His kick was excellent.”

More MarshallAfter the game, Warzycha said he does not think the blow Chad Marshall took to the head will produce any long-term problems. In the immediate aftermath of Marshall going down, a number of fans asked me on Twitter why Marshall does not wear any sort of protective headgear given his history of concussions.

I asked him about that topic last season when he recovered from a concussion.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he said June 27. “I’m not sure. Guys that have worn it in the past I haven’t really talked to them. You don’t see a lot of guys wearing them. The guys that I’ve talked to aren’t the biggest on it. It’s definitely a possibility. I might just for those fluke balls that hit you. It might be able to absorb some of that. I’m definitely toying with the idea.”< /p>

It’s a topic I might revisit with him during our next chat, just to see if his thoughts have changed at all.

Quotable“We’re in Orlando so we knew the crowd was going to be with them. Any time a team like that can play an MLS team they’re going to be fired up. We didn’t overlook them or anything. We knew it was going to be a tough game. They fought hard. It’s a good team. it got a little chippy and it ended up being a good match. It’s what we needed from a preseason game.” – Williams on Orlando City